Liz Wolfe: Hey, everyone. Welcome to Episode 99. Holy… smokes. Episode 99 of the Balanced Bites Podcast! Liz here. Diane over there. As you heard in the last episode, in Episode 98 with Jill Ciciarelli of the fabulous book Fermented –

Diane Sanfilippo: We love to say that.

Liz Wolfe: We just love saying that, that’s all. We are really proud to be sponsored by Chameleon Cold-Brew and Pete’s Paleo. Diane, are you on the juice right now? Are you on the Chameleon Cold-Brew?

Diane Sanfilippo: Indeed, I am, and after however much time of folks hearing that I wasn’t drinking coffee, I have to say I’m pretty convinced it’s 100% impossible to write books effectively without any caffeine.

Liz Wolfe: Without a little help?

Diane Sanfilippo: From my friends at Chameleon Cold-Brew. So yeah, quickly I just want to let people know that I think it’s an amazing product. I was actually really curious as to why I didn’t feel any of the weird stomach upset that I used to feel from coffee otherwise.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah, you used to get weird.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, remember? It was this weird acidic feeling in my stomach.

Liz Wolfe: You’d get all cranky, and I wouldn’t want to hang out with you.

Diane Sanfilippo: Not that we ever see each other in person anyway.

Liz Wolfe: That’s true.

Diane Sanfilippo: But actually what I used to do with coffee was drink it and not ever finish it. I know you kind of do that, too, sometimes. We’d go to seminars and have four sips of a coffee and then never finish it. And with iced coffee, usually it will take me a good half a day to finish one if I get it somewhere, but when I pour mine at home and it’s my Chameleon Cold-Brew, I’m actually able to drink it because it’s really smooth. We were talking last week quickly about how the oils and the tannins don’t mix with cold water, so that makes it less acidic. I love learning about the whys of what makes this stuff better. One thing I didn’t mention last week was that they are organic, fair-trade coffee, so really good quality stuff. I know a lot of times people are stopping in coffee shops and you’re not getting organic coffee, which is really important. Coffee is a very highly sprayed-with-pesticides crop.

Liz Wolfe: Is it?

Diane Sanfilippo: Mm-hmm.

Liz Wolfe: I had no idea.

Diane Sanfilippo: Indeed, so organic coffee is really important, and I also obviously love the idea that it’s fair trade. We want to make sure that the growers are being treated fairly. So that’s what I have to say this week about Chameleon Cold-Brew. I love the stuff. Check out the podcast post for a coupon code, and if you’re buying it in stores, which you can find it often at Whole Foods and some other locations near you – at ChameleonColdBrew.com you can find out the locations – just hop on Facebook or Twitter or wherever you’re going and just let Chameleon Cold-Brew know that you heard about them from Balanced Bites. I think they’d love to know where their new fans are coming from.

So, Pete’s Paleo. I would love to just kind of give you guys one word about Pete’s Paleo, and that would be… bacon! We love bacon. We love good-quality bacon from well-raised pigs. Pete’s Paleo has amazing bacon. It’s super meaty, really tasty. It makes everything you’re cooking better, so for people who are like: I don’t know how to cook. My food doesn’t taste good. Just get some Pete’s Paleo bacon, cook it up and add it, and you’ll have miracle magic happening on your plate!

Liz Wolfe: Miracle magic.

Diane Sanfilippo: That’s right!

Liz Wolfe: I’ve been cooking it in my –

Diane Sanfilippo: Oh, wait! One thing!

Liz Wolfe: What?!

Diane Sanfilippo: It’s like unicorn sprinkles, Pete’s Paleo bacon!

Liz Wolfe: Oh, no.

Diane Sanfilippo: Have you not heard about this? People are, like, all bent out of shape, thinking that obscure ingredients that we might use are called unicorn sprinkles. Oh, forget it. I’m totally loopy right now. All right, tell me about your Pete’s Paleo.

Liz Wolfe: What if we spiked the Cold-Brew with some kind of, like, at-home mash that I’m making, something I’m stomping on in my backyard?

Diane Sanfilippo: I’m very fearful of this.

Liz Wolfe: We’re doing everything.

Diane Sanfilippo: Don’t let the goats step on it.

Liz Wolfe: Oh, man.

Diane Sanfilippo: Tell me about your Pete’s Paleo meals.

Liz Wolfe: Well, I actually had one this morning, and my husband’s going to be very mad. What we got from Pete’s Paleo was the run of meals, 10 meals, and I had double protein, so it’s a lot of food, but there are two, one for myself and one for my husband, and –

Diane Sanfilippo: And you ate all of it?

Liz Wolfe: – I ate all of it this morning. So he’s going to come home from work, like, the hour drive from base, ready for his pulled pork, and I’m going to be like: Sorry. I put an egg on it! I had it for breakfast. That’s the new Portlandia reference, right? Put an egg on it!

Diane Sanfilippo: Like put a bird on it?

Liz Wolfe: Yeah. We can pickle that!

Diane Sanfilippo: Now we’re going to have to link to that. Put a bird on it!

Liz Wolfe: So anyway, I had Pete’s Paleo for breakfast, and like I said, they’ve been a lifesaver. We actually lost power this morning because that’s what happens when you love in a hundred-plus-year-old house and wires and such are –

Diane Sanfilippo: You’re trying to be on the Internet and blow dry your hair at the same time?

Liz Wolfe: I’m trying to be on the Internet and, like, hand crank butter at the same time, and somehow that overwhelms the overall capacity of the house.

Diane Sanfilippo: Well, this is a good segue. You’re trying to hand crank butter. I wanted to quickly make a note since last week’s episode was one that we had recorded with Jill kind of ahead of time, our previous episode, #97, the sort of rebuttal to Sally Fallon, I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who tuned into that one. I’ve taken note that folks enjoy when I rant, so I will make sure I add the possibility of some rants into future episodes. I think we have a short one sometime in today’s episode.

Liz Wolfe: I think so.

Diane Sanfilippo: Possibly the first question. And I wanted to mention that that episode actually at least for a day was number one in the health and fitness podcast episodes, even beating Jillian Michaels.

Liz Wolfe: What?!

Diane Sanfilippo: It took paleo and Weston Price drama to take over the Jillian Michaels madness, so thanks to everyone.

Liz Wolfe: That really did kind of take over the Interwebs. I’m a fan of a bunch of paleo/Weston A Price pages on my Facebook, and what’s funny is I think people don’t realize that I’m there, too. I don’t know why, but –

Diane Sanfilippo: Were they talking about you like you weren’t there?

Liz Wolfe: They were talking about us! And somebody said: Haha. Diane and Liz. You either love ‘em or you hate ‘em. And I was like: What have I done to make you hate me?! There might have been crying after that.

Diane Sanfilippo: I’m pretty sure everybody has haters… somewhere.

Liz Wolfe: Probably. But it made me sad. It made me so sad. But it was kind of funny because I was observing the chatter about it. It definitely made some waves.

Liz Wolfe: OK. Oh, and a quick reminder to people: Episode 100 next week is going to be “Ask Diane and Liz anything.” Not food related, not –

Diane Sanfilippo: It’s “Ask Diane and Liz almost anything.”

Liz Wolfe: Almost anything. We may have to pick and choose, but I know I’ve answered a couple highly sensitive questions with personal information from my own life just praying that my grandma’s not listening.

Diane Sanfilippo: I think we have plenty of questions for that one, but I guess if people see this and want to throw some others at us. My goal with that episode, mind you, is to sort of do it as a rapid fire… if we’re even capable of that.

Liz Wolfe: Just gross everybody out?

Diane Sanfilippo: Gross everybody out?

Liz Wolfe: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: No, but just to not take as much time as we normally do answer, but just answer without too much explanation, like, rattle them off.

Liz Wolfe: I’m not so good at that –

Diane Sanfilippo: No? Me neither.

Liz Wolfe: – but I’ll work on brevity.

Diane Sanfilippo: As I mentioned in a podcast I was on last week with my coach at the gym – he’s doing a Spreaker show. It’s, like, a different platform for radio –

Liz Wolfe: Is that like twerking?

Diane Sanfilippo: It’s definitely not like twerking at all. It’s Spreaker. The show’s called Limitless, and we did the show, and I was like: Listen. Brevity’s not my strong suit. And three people in the room were like: What the heck’s brevity? I’m like: Yeah, exactly.

Liz Wolfe: Question #1 from Grace: “When do you decide to stop trying to open someone’s mind to the nonconventional approach to healthy living? When is enough enough? Rather than argue, do you just walk away?” At what point do you stop being quiet about your non-supportive stepmom, aunt, etc. (insert family member here) in the life of your loved ones? So I guess this question is basically about how loud and obnoxious do I get about trying to convert people, or do I just keep my mouth shut? Diane?

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, and the second point there that at what point do you just stop being quiet – that was really a follow-up. That wasn’t part of Grace’s original question.

Liz Wolfe: Oh, gotcha.

Diane Sanfilippo: I had gotten that one from someone else last week. I have this sort of… I don’t know, sort of rant on my mind about watching – and I’ve seen this in some of my close family, actually, not my parents or sister, but other relatives, where one is trying to get healthier and has stated an intention and is aware that it’s not easy to tackle this new challenge and the other is just not supportive. I think that there’s a certain amount of time it’s going to take to, one, stand your ground and kind of say: No, I really want to do this. Because a lot of times people say they want to do things and they don’t really follow through, and I think you have to take a little bit of a stand for yourself to show that you’re making the effort. But there’s a point at which – and I don’t know exactly how many days or weeks or months that point will crop up – a point at which I feel – and this is maybe something where if this is you and you have a non-supportive spouse, family member, friend, whoever, and they want to listen to this with you – there’s a point at which that spouse, family member, friend, you don’t get to sabotage other people’s efforts. I feel like there’s this amount of respect and love that you should be showing to those around you, and it doesn’t mean that their habits need to infiltrate every part of your life because as adults we leave the house, we have other places we go to, and we can make other choices. So maybe when you’re at a restaurant, your friend of loved one or whoever is making a different choice, and that’s a perfect time if you feel like ordering your pasta or whatever it is, you can order a separate plate. It’s not in the house, it’s not something that they can kind of snack on or whatever, but there are times and places when their choices don’t need to affect you as much.

I have this really strong feeling about what’s in the house, so for example, when my dad had his gallbladder removed a couple of years ago, I talked to my mom about getting the gluten out of the house, and she was amazingly supportive, and they eat mostly gluten-free-ish. My parents are not paleo. I talk about it all the time, but it was one of those things where at that moment in time if he has stated that he’s interested in doing this thing, it’s your job as a loving, supportive – I think, especially if it’s a spouse. I don’t really care if as a spouse it’s not something you want to adopt. I get it that you may not believe in it, you may not feel it’s necessary for you, you may not even feel it’s necessary for your loved one, but isn’t that the point of being in that partnership? That you’re there to love and support each other? So if you’re not supportive of this thing that they feel so strongly is important to their health, which is the most important thing in our lives – I mean, how can we enjoy life if we don’t have our health? And I know that to some degree there’s more to life than just focusing on health, but I feel like there’s just this… I don’t know what it is, if it’s a sabotage effect or an “I don’t think this is important enough” or whatever it is that goes on in the other person’s head, but it makes me angry. It makes me angry that somebody would not be supportive of someone else’s choices and desire to find health on that path.

Now, we can look at this from the other side and if I had a spouse who decided at one point to become vegetarian, I don’t know that I would be able to support that in the same way. I think that there are different levels to this, but I think that what we know about real food under this whole umbrella is refined garbage and sugar and just processed foods coming into the house and not at least bringing real, whole, good foods into the house, that’s the point at which I think… you just don’t get to sabotage someone. You don’t have that right to stand in their way of health, and I just think it’s kind of despicable and it really upsets me. So at what point do you stop trying to convince someone to open their mind? I don’t think that it’s worth trying to really convince people. I think it’s just important to kind of stand your own ground and then expect and almost demand their support in whatever way you feel is important to you. And I wouldn’t argue with people. I would just say: This is how it needs to be. And I’m sure we’ll get plenty of comments from people who are like: Well, I can’t do that with this person or that person. That’s fine. I’m just giving you my take. People ask for our take and our advice, and so that’s what you get.

What do you think, Liz, because I know we’ve both had some experience with this?

Liz Wolfe: This is why I just think everyone should be blogging, which might sound stupid, but I sent out an Email Monday on this a couple of weeks ago. I feel like putting your thoughts out there on the Internet… carefully and probably without any half-naked pictures or anything like that, but just putting your thoughts out there on the Internet or at the very least, writing and spending the time writing about what you’re doing, not in a way that’s intended to convert people, not in an aggressive way, like: I’m doing this, but my family’s not listening! That type of thing. Just blogging about what you’re doing, that’s how I got started with the whole blog deal. It’s a really good, kind of passive way to embody what you believe in and put it out there for people to read without them actually having to knock down any walls, whether those walls or pride or whether it has to do with them not thinking the science is there, whatever it is, they can head over there and they can read that, they can remain anonymous, and they can start following your journey, formulating their own thoughts, that type of thing. And for me, also blogging helped hone my position. It helped hone my thoughts of what I wanted to share with other people. So I think that’s a great way to influence not just family who will probably be your first readers, but friends and just random Internet stumblers. So that’s really where I think it starts for a lot of people.

Diane Sanfilippo: OK.

Liz Wolfe: OK.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.

Liz Wolfe: I mean, I agree with everything you said, but if you really want to communicate things that matter to you, I think blogging is a really good, really simple way to put it out there without people feeling like you’re rubbing sandpaper on their brain.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. And I guess, too, I kind of answered the follow-up more than I answered the “When do you decide to stop trying to open someone else’s mind? When is enough enough? Rather than argue, do you just walk away?” To answer this one very easily, I don’t argue. I don’t even get into health-related topics with anyone. And I’ll give you a really perfect example of this. This is actually a very personal example. I few weeks ago, my sister was in town. She lives in London, and she’s a yoga teacher there, and she follows a mostly vegetarian diet and has since high school. She has dabbled back and forth with a little bit of meat and is convinced that it doesn’t feel good for her body, which I think there are varying levels of different types of proteins that might feel good for people, but of course, I also know reasons why sometimes they don’t feel good, if you have low stomach acid and you’re a very stressed person. And she has this way of always wanting to talk to me about nutrition. And I make this analogy all the time, and I haven’t really talked to her about this too much, but to me, this would be like if I talked to her about yoga and consistently was talking to her about how much I loved this style of yoga that she feels is just not what she believes in, and based on her years and years of experience and education, she does not feel that it’s the right way to approach yoga.

Just the type of person that I am, I know I’m not an expert on everything. I consider myself at least somewhat of an expert on nutrition. It’s one of the topics I’ve delved into and I’ve studied for a long time, and I don’t know everything. I absolutely do not and would never claim to. But I will not open up and have conversations with people about things and just constantly be like: Well, I think this, this, and this, and just really get into it when I know they’re an expert on the topic. It’s just one of those weird things. And I think the tough part about nutrition is that when people – I think this is something that Robb Wolf said at some point. He was like: Just because people eat, they think they’re experts in nutrition. And to a degree, you can become an expert on the way that your body responds to foods, and you need to be, right? I mean, we want people to have that awareness. But I become extremely silent when my sister starts talking to me about nutrition. And actually my boyfriend noticed this. He was like: I don’t think I’ve ever seen you just not say anything before. He was like: I didn’t even know what to make of it.

Liz Wolfe: Me neither. Are you sure you’re talking about you?

Diane Sanfilippo: Especially when it comes to nutrition because I cannot have a conversation with her because it will turn into an argument, because if I say what’s true to me, and I can’t have a conversation that I’m just lying, you know? I just can’t humor somebody. It’s not me. So I will just be quiet and just nod and smile and sort of comment on the things that I can agree about, which are maybe 10% to 20% of the things that she might have said about whatever she’s eating. And the rest of it I just say: OK, good. I’m glad you found what works for you. Or I’m glad you’re feeling better. And that’s it. I don’t argue. That’s my approach because it will make my blood boil. And I also think you kind of take yourself into this place where you become… at least for me, I can get really hotheaded and I’ll become angry and sort of won’t be as collected with my thoughts, like what you were saying, Liz, where you can collect your thoughts and know what you’re saying when you blog about something, for example. If you get to a point where you’re getting kind of angry about it and arguing, you no longer sound sane and justified in your approach. And I think most people have learned at this point that two people who come to a conversation with differing opinions are not going to leave of the same opinion. It’s just not how it works. So if you think that this argument is going to change their mind, think again.

Liz Wolfe: Next question: Losing weight and I don’t want to. Help! This is from Kristi. “Hey, lovely ladies! Firstly, thank you for being amazing.” Aww. “I’m totally geeking out on Skintervention, eagerly awaiting my Primal Life Organics order, and Practical Paleo is the first cookbook of many that I actually find myself using on an almost daily basis.” Whoop, whoop! “So the question: I’ve been doing a paleo-plus-treats way of eating for almost two years now, and I’m becoming well aware that my treats, too-regular dark chocolate, almond butter, recently a weekly gluten-free cookie – yuck…” By the way, she said yuck. I didn’t say yuck. I’m not judging. “… and less frequently, sprouted bread or an overdose on roasted potatoes, they need to go. I’m getting super serious about an AI protocol, omitting eggs, nightshades, and nuts, which I know I don’t digest anyway, in hopes to clear some joint pain and ongoing skin issues as well as chronic constipation, but I’m having trouble eating. I seem to have no appetite. I’m not a big fan of red meat, and I find I just can’t finish a meal if it has a lot of fat in it, like bacon and sautéed veggies with avocado, or even mince and sweet potatoes drizzled with olive oil feels too heavy. I suffered with eating issues in the past, and this is not a head thing for me. I usually have a massive appetite, but I find myself not being able to eat enough doing this protocol purely out of lack of desire. I’ve lost 2 kilos in the last few weeks, which drops me into almost underweight for my build, athletic, and size, 108 pounds at 5’2″. The last two days I resorted to eating some rice just to get something in my body.”

“In my previous life, I was a strict vegetarian, so I’m sure that has messed with my ability to digest some things, so as much as possible, I take digestive support in the form of HCl as well as an enzyme mix, but I’d love to hear any suggestions or guidance you have. Keep on keeping on until my body adapts? I don’t really want to be forcing food into myself or sitting with a plate full of rice out of sheer desperation. I know I have issues sleeping. Nightshift has stuffed my body clock a bit, and my cortisol is high. Have done blood tests. But in the past these things have spiked my appetite, so I’m confused. I want to have a full buy-in with this stuff, but I also don’t want to shrink anymore. I’ve given up my only treat of a daily long black coffee in hopes it will help. I’m hoping you two intelligent beauties can shine some of your wisdom my way.”

Do you think I need to read the rest of this, Diane? I haven’t gone over it.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah, I think she covered all of it. Do you have any opening thoughts on this one?

Diane Sanfilippo: It sounded like… I’m trying to read back because I was so involved with the end of it and now I’m forgetting what she said in the beginning… Why was she trying the autoimmune protocol? Joint pain? I think she’s limiting her food choices more than she really needs to here. Is that something that you were going to call out?

Liz Wolfe: Yeah. I think it’s a mix.

Diane Sanfilippo: She’s going fairly heavy on the fat and protein, and it sounds like there’s no reason why she needs to avoid things like fruit and some more carbohydrates. And it doesn’t need to be sweet potato that’s covered in fat. High fat, high protein isn’t right for everyone all the time. And for her, perhaps it feels good at some times and not at others. I think if those foods don’t sound good or you’re having trouble eating them, change what’s on your plate, right?

Liz Wolfe: I do think the lack of desire… I mean, this is a really easy call-out. I lot of times when you know something is good for you but you don’t want it, obviously it’s kind of a “too bad, so sad, you know you need it, you want to eat it” thing, but I understand that feeling where you just have no desire for what you actually need or want to be eating. And a lot of that is – and for example, for people who are former vegetarians as she is – when you don’t eat something, such as animal protein or maybe you’ve been low fat for a long time, your body actually does kind of relinquish the capacity to digest it. And that makes you not want it anymore. So if you really just don’t want protein or you just don’t want any extra fat and you’re coming from that place, it’s probably because you can’t digest it so you’ve lost the desire for it, not because you should listen to your body and you don’t want it so you’re not going to eat it. It actually is something that… like Kristi is trying to do, you need to figure out a way to triage the situation and try to come around to a place where you can tolerate a little bit of it. Like you said, Diane, you don’t have to be eating high protein or high fat or whatever, but you do need to try and activate those capacities again. So my best advice is, like you said, she’s probably being a little bit too eliminative – if that’s a word –

Diane Sanfilippo: You should know if that’s a word or not!

Liz Wolfe: I have no idea at this point. I understand that maybe she has been doing paleo plus the treats, and maybe the treats have overtaken things and she’s feeling the need to just wipe the whole board clean but is not 100% sure how she’s going to achieve that, given her reduced digestive capacities and what she actually has a taste for. So I think what probably needs to happen is just, you know, relax… because it’s all going to be fine. You’re going to figure it out. She’s already on the road to figuring it out. She’s being very insightful. Don’t worry. I also don’t think a little white rice is the end of the world, to be honest with you, unless there really is some kind of autoimmune flare issue that’s happening. And I don’t think that that’s necessarily what’s happening. I just think maybe she’s talking about the autoimmune protocol just for the sake of really getting out anything that possibly could be affecting her, and I just don’t know if that’s necessary right here. I did that before. I was just kind of like: Well, I got rid of bread and vegetable oils. Why don’t I get rid of nightshades and nuts and eggs and all of these other things just to see what happens? And, meh. It was fine, but…

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, I think it can be a little overwhelming.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: And I think joint pain, ongoing skin issues, chronic constipation – If you’re having trouble eating and you’re finding that you’re way too limited, your appetite’s not easy… Everything she was listing about what she’s trying to eat, they all sound like pretty heavy things. Make yourself a salad with a whole bunch of veggies in it. Do some shredded carrot and some things that are lighter feeling. I don’t know what season it is where she is, but in the summertime that’s fine. That’s a little more natural. And I think it’s just so overwhelming that that stress can be more of a problem than what benefit it might bring at the time.

Liz Wolfe: I think it’s pretty clear that stress is an issue here obviously because of the nightshift and because she’s worried and because she’s trying to figure this stuff out, but I also think chewing your meat really, really, really well, that’s the first line of defense. Whatever it is that you’re eating, just chew the crap out of it, and that’ll help activate digestion a little bit. Probably she is going to have to give herself two weeks of just eating some good healthy protein. Even if she doesn’t necessarily have a taste of it, she’s going to have to put it in her mouth, chew it, and swallow it.

Diane Sanfilippo: I think, too, this could be a time when… it’s that balance of if your body’s not digesting it, you really need to support that and also not trying too hard to the point where you’re then not eating. I think if it means red meat is not really feeling right for her right now, and the bacon, there’s no reason you have to be eating red meat and bacon. Eat some fish. I go through phases all the time where either I just don’t have a lot of red meat in the house – Somebody asked me last week: Are you not eating red meat for a reason because all your Instagram looks like chicken and fish? I’m like: First of all, Instagram is not every meal that I ever eat, contrary to popular belief. But also I ran out of my cow share for the most part. It was just like: Look. This is the “season” of my protein. It’s just whatever is going to happen. And it’s not a bad thing to rotate it and go for things that feel lighter to you but you’ll still be getting that full complement of amino acids from those animal proteins and at some point figuring out the red meat issue so that you can get the right kind of iron and B vitamins and all that into your system from those types of proteins. I think it is that balance of supporting your system to digest it and feel good eating it and also not worrying that that’s the only thing that you should be eating. You will be fine eating chicken and fish for a couple of weeks, you know?

Liz Wolfe: We both have a lot to say about this question. I feel like there’s a lot of advice coming at Kristi. Hopefully something’s helping. But also remember that I talk about – I don’t know how far into Skintervention she is, but I talk a lot about supporting digestion in part two, and I give several different levels of how you can support yourself, and the first level is always lifestyle changes. She’s taking HCl and enzymes and working to support her digestion with supplements, but there’s a step before that, and that’s chewing. That’s relaxing, being able to sit down, take a few deep breaths, and enjoy your food. You really can’t supplement yourself out of stress-induced, time-crunch-enabled digestive problems. So really do your best if you can, Kristi, to make mealtime kind of a ritual, and try to prime your digestion from the inside out. So try and do it in and of yourself endogenously in addition to, but not in place of… you don’t want to be using supplements in place of actually rescuing your body itself during mealtime, if that makes sense. Does that make sense?

Diane Sanfilippo: It does.

3. Minimalist Footwear [33:54]

Liz Wolfe: OK. All right, let’s move on to the next question. This is on footwear, from Natalie. “I have a question about shoes. If you’re going the minimalist shoe route, what do you wear in between Vibrams and real-world shoes, boots, heels, etc.? Sometimes the occasion, i.e. a casual date early on before the other person realizes you’re a crazy hippie, doesn’t make FiveFingers the best choice, so what do you guys wear? Three years ago, when I was 19, I seriously –”

Diane Sanfilippo: She’s implying that we have some kind of amazing answer here.

Liz Wolfe: I know that my husband fell in love with me because I was wearing 8-inch-tall stripper heels.

Diane Sanfilippo: I don’t know if we need all the deets on this one, do we?

Liz Wolfe: She has some foot issues.

Diane Sanfilippo: OK.

Liz Wolfe: I’ll read this next paragraph. “Three years ago I seriously messed up one of my toes in a random culmination of very flat feet and Converse. I’ve been diagnosed with combinations of tendonitis, capsulitis, and plantar fasciitis. I hate running, so that was never an issue for me, but walking became excruciating at times. I’ve done several rounds of physical therapy and have been strictly recommended to wear super supportive Asics with my $400 custom orthotics.”

I guess I’ll stop there. This actually might be a great question for us to revisit when we have Katy from Aligned and Well, who is an alignment/movement expert. We’ll have her on sometime later in September or October. But for now, I honestly… I’m not totally sure. I never wear heels anymore.

Diane Sanfilippo: Well, you’re, like, 10 feet tall, first of all.

Liz Wolfe: OK. Well, I’m 10 feet tall. I used to wear heels all the time, all the time, constantly.

Diane Sanfilippo: It’s because you married a guy who’s not super tall.

Liz Wolfe: I used to wear heels when we were dating.

Diane Sanfilippo: You did?

Liz Wolfe: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: That’s because you were still trying to impress him. Duh.

Liz Wolfe: He liked walking into a room with me when I was 8 feet taller than everybody else in the room, being like: This is my girl! And that’s exactly how he said it. Just kidding. But I just don’t wear them anymore because they’re uncomfortable. I don’t wear my Vibrams that much because I found that I’m a little bit hapless and I would, like, bend one toe underneath the rest of my foot. Like, I’d trip over two toes. So I was having a little bit of trouble with that.

Diane Sanfilippo: You’re clumsy?!

Liz Wolfe: I’m a little clumsy. But you know, I used to share an office with a chiropractor, a friend of mine who absolutely hates flip flops. Sometimes we think flip flops are good because we’re super minimal, man, and we’re at the University of Kansas and I always wear flip flops, even in the winter. Whatever. But really, flip flops are not good for your feet, and so I generally just default to flats or I do the New Balance… I forgot what they are. They’re the minimalist New Balance shoes. And I just try to be barefoot as much as possible. But I really can’t answer the question for somebody with flat feet or who has the recommendation for orthotics. Is this something that you’re man has any insight on, Diane?

Diane Sanfilippo: Well, I won’t be able to tap into his intellect remotely right now.

Liz Wolfe: [laughter]

Diane Sanfilippo: I don’t know. My instinct on this is that more supportive shoes – I can’t help but think of a really funny analogy right now. At one time in my life, I was convinced that bras were important because if you didn’t wear them, then you wouldn’t be supporting your boobs and they would get saggier. And now I’m of the complete opposite conviction that supporting them too much is not allowing them to form some kind of strength on their own. I mean, they’re mostly fat, but you have a little bit of muscle there, and the tissue just needs to move around.

So on to your, like, hippie question about supporting parts of our body, I really do think that… First of all, “the doctors advised me to wear Asics around the house,” listen. I think we know how I feel about these recommendations that we’re getting with the “they say do this.” Who are “they?” I don’t think it intuitively, intellectually makes any sense that this thing that we created in a sneaker with all this support is helpful. I just don’t. I don’t understand why that would be helpful. I think there are some cases and conditions where if you have some kind of imbalance or you know that one leg is shorter than the other, something specific where having shoes with a lift that helps to even you out and actually make things more balanced – It’s almost like the thyroid hormone thing. If you’re putting something back in place that should have been there from the beginning but you have this problem because modern society messes us up. If for some reason you developed and this one leg is significantly shorter than the other, then there might be something to that where you get a way to even that out.

Other than that, I like minimalist shoes. I’m home working for the most part. I don’t wear shoes around the house ever. I tend to wear my Asics… No. I lied. I just said that because that was the brand that was in here. I have inov-8’s that I wear to the gym, those super flat, minimalist sneakers. I wear my FiveFingers if we’re going to walk the dog or walk around the park. I do wear flip flops. I don’t think that they’re good to wear, but I wear them. The only shoes I really wear outside of that are sometimes my cowboy boots. That’s purely for fashion. I know. Some people might not think that that makes much sense, but that has nothing to do with them being healthy to wear. I have shoes with heels that I wear very rarely, once a month or so to go out, but very, very rarely. And I don’t really know. I wear Olympic lifting shoes sometimes. My life is very boring, so I have no reason to put on interesting shoes. I’m curious about Toms. Liz, do you have a pair of Toms?

Liz Wolfe: No.

Diane Sanfilippo: I’ve seen a lot of people wearing them. They look kind of like a minimalist – they remind me of espadrilles. Do you remember espadrilles?

Liz Wolfe: Yes, I do. Back when I used to shot at Talbots. No. No, I don’t remember espadrilles. Yes, I do.

Diane Sanfilippo: [laughter]

Liz Wolfe: I’m having an internal battle right now, how much to reveal about my footwear.

Diane Sanfilippo: I hope you didn’t ever used to shot at Talbots because Talbots is definitely meant for an older population.

Liz Wolfe: Spiegel and Newport News, Talbots, you know? All the catalogs.

Diane Sanfilippo: If you were shopping there when you were 20, then we have bigger issues.

Liz Wolfe: [laughter]

Diane Sanfilippo: So recommendations? I personally don’t think that the intense level of “support” that a lot of these sneakers offer is probably the right thing. I think if there is some kind of imbalance going on that she needs to get corrected, then that would be a very customized situation where you’d need an assessment from someone who is going to customize your support. Generally speaking, at this point when I see sneakers, like a highly supportive cross-training sneaker, I just look at them and I think they’re high-heeled sneakers.

Liz Wolfe: [laughter]

Diane Sanfilippo: I do! I’m like: What are you wearing high-heeled sneakers for? How are you supposed to squat when you’re up, like, 2 inches in the back there? Yeah. I don’t do flats. I don’t find myself to be comfortable in flats, but that’s just me.

Liz Wolfe: I would prefer to be barefoot.

Diane Sanfilippo: They squeeze my feet.

Liz Wolfe: Well, that’s because you have –

Diane Sanfilippo: What?

Liz Wolfe: – big ol’ clown feet.

Diane Sanfilippo: That’s not true.

Liz Wolfe: For more thoughts on the foot stuff, go to FootPainBook.com.

Diane Sanfilippo: What’s that?

Liz Wolfe: That’s Katy Bowman’s current book. You can download a free chapter. But Katy’s really active in the ancestral health community. She’s an alignment genius. She’s kind of my new obsession. She’s really, really funny, too. Her book is Every Woman’s Guide to Foot Pain Relief, but I have a hunch she’s going to have some really good insights for this person.

Diane Sanfilippo: I forgot. I was reading ahead in her question, that we didn’t read all of this, about the winter. In the winter, I wear Uggs. They’re hideously ugly, and I don’t care because they’re comfortable.

Liz Wolfe: She says that in this question?

Diane Sanfilippo: No, I’m saying that.

Liz Wolfe: Oh, I gotcha.

Diane Sanfilippo: She’s talking about other things she would wear in the winter, but I didn’t know if she was asking what we do wear. Anyway.

Liz Wolfe: Oh, gotcha. Well, I do have several pairs of Vibrams. I have a pair of Vibram New Balance shoes with the Vibram soles. I wear a lot of galoshes now that we’re out at the homestead… with warm socks. I don’t have a pair of Uggs. I have a pair of SOREL boots, which are kind of like kissing cousins to Uggs, in my opinion. You do wear Uggs, don’t you?

Diane Sanfilippo: I do.

Liz Wolfe: Hmm.

Diane Sanfilippo: I am aware that they are not attractive. I’m not kidding myself. Don’t worry.

Liz Wolfe: My thing is, like, when I see the middle school young ladies walking around, like, in the heat of summer in, like, booty shorts –

Diane Sanfilippo: And Uggs?

Liz Wolfe: – a halter top –

Diane Sanfilippo: It’s, like, an LA thing.

Liz Wolfe: – and Uggs. Ugh.

Diane Sanfilippo: I feel like people in LA wear Uggs, like, all the time. I’m sweating just seeing that! It’s so hot out there!

Liz Wolfe: And that floppy ponytail that’s in style right know? Like, they kind of put a ponytail in and then flop it out real hard so it sags out on the side. Ugh. Kids these days.

Diane Sanfilippo: Do you remember when we were in LA and everyone there was complaining that we had just missed this cold front, and I think it was, like, a 70-degree cold front or something.

Liz Wolfe: Wow. Tough life.

Diane Sanfilippo: You don’t remember that?

Liz Wolfe: I do remember that.

Diane Sanfilippo: Everywhere we went, people were commenting on the fact that it was just so cold.

Liz Wolfe: And we were like…

Diane Sanfilippo: We were like: Well, we flew into the future because we’re in summer now.

Liz Wolfe: Oh, I do remember that.

Diane Sanfilippo: We flew to summer!

Liz Wolfe: And we thought that was really funny.

Diane Sanfilippo: What good are you as a travel buddy if we can’t reminisce, Liz?

Liz Wolfe: I don’t know. I’m just sitting there white-knuckling the seat in front of me, thinking about my fear of flying the whole time.

Diane Sanfilippo: Oy vey. OK.

Liz Wolfe: All right, next question.

Diane Sanfilippo: How much time have we been going now?

Liz Wolfe: I honestly have no idea.

Diane Sanfilippo: Uh-oh.

Liz Wolfe: I can’t tell.

Diane Sanfilippo: OK.

4. Paleo Approach for HIV [45:16]

Liz Wolfe: We can do one or two more questions. Let’s see where it takes us. All right, footwear! Oh, wait. No. We just did that one. Paleo approach for HIV. “Hi. I’m 31 and was diagnosed as HIV positive two years ago, so I was wondering if there’s any approach or adjustment that I can do to my diet in order to increase my CD4s and reduce my viral load. I’ve been mostly paleo for one year but can’t see improvements in this. My blood tests are usually fine, and it looks like I won’t need any treatment for a long time, but I want to do my best as soon as possible. I was thinking about the autoimmune protocol, but I don’t know if it’s suitable in this case.”

A little bit about lifestyle: “Work is quite active, standing all day and walking, usually about 30 hours a week. I exercise at the gym three times a week, weight training, short sessions. I sleep 8 to 10 hours daily, and I quit supplements after reading Practical Paleo. I used to take omega-3 capsules and vitamins. My energy levels are usually perfect unless I slip out of paleo with carbs and need to start to burn again, the typical transition. Currently IF 16/8 and great. Always paleo unless on holidays visiting my family five times a year when I eat almost everything available and usually a lot, as I don’t have any other known health issues or allergies or intolerances.”

I’m by no means well versed in this topic on HIV or CD4s and whatnot, but I do know that Mary Enig, who is an ancestral/traditional diet-oriented, internationally renowned expert on fats – Enig has done some research and some writing about HIV and monolaurin or lauric acid, which is a component of coconut oil. We hear a lot about medium-chain triglycerides, specifically lauric acid, and she has written about it in the treatment or management of HIV. And I’ll just throw out a book that might be helpful. I think it’s called Nutrients and Foods in AIDS, but you could also Google “Mary Enig and HIV,” and you’ll come up with some of these scholarly articles and whatnot that she has contributed to. But basically the idea is that monolaurin is actually able to – I guess she calls it virucidal – basically degrade pathogens. She has talked a lot about that, so I would definitely look that up. I think that’s probably the biggest call-out, I would say, besides just keeping your immune system shored up and doing what you’re already doing.

Any more thoughts on that, Diane?

Diane Sanfilippo: I do not have more thoughts on that. Nope.

Liz Wolfe: OK. Yeah, so look up this book, Nutrients and Foods in AIDS, and I think it’s chapter four or chapter five maybe. You might even be able to get it on Google Books or whatever and be able to read a little bit about that.

OK, how about one more question?

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, I think so.

5. Blog Etiquette [48:31]

Liz Wolfe: OK. This one’s a fun one. This is on blog etiquette. This is from Julie. “I have a question about blog etiquette. I recently bought your book, Practical Paleo, and have made a lot of the recipes. They’re all amazing so far. I’ve listened to all your podcast episodes, and you said a few times to start a blog to get your ideas out there.” So I have said that before. I think maybe she’s confusing the two of us maybe a little, which is fine because apparently we sound exactly the same, Diane.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah, exactly. Can you hear the goats? “I have a blog that I post pictures of paleo food and other healthy things I’m doing and trying. What is the appropriate way to share your recipes and other recipes from other blogs on my blog without stealing the recipe? Can you post the ingredients and recipe directions as long as you credit the original source with a link to their blog or book? Or is that still not appropriate blog etiquette? I appreciate any information you have on this, although I know it’s not a typical Balanced Bites question. I follow both yours and Liz’s blogs and trust your opinions. I don’t want to start my blog off on the wrong foot.”

The reason she can’t tell what the correct etiquette is for this by reading your blog or my blog is because I don’t post recipes and you come up with all your own recipes!

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, if I have a recipe that was inspired by someone else, or a lot of times there will be some kind of trend going around, like the whole fruit gelatin gummy trend, right? I was inspired to do it by Hayley from the Food Lovers who made them a couple months before I did, maybe, but I know she was inspired by somebody else, and I can’t remember who it was. And it’s almost like we’re all getting inspiration from somewhere, and so I’ll create my own recipe, decide what I want to put in there, and write my own instructions for how to do it, and that’s my recipe. And what I tend to do is if I wrote the recipe on my own but I’m inspired by other people or I just want to share the love, I put links to some other similar posts at the end of my recipe. But if I were to share someone else’s recipe, my take on the etiquette because etiquette is a subjective thing, I think that if you’re going to post the full text of the recipe, you should get permission for that. I think if you’re going to post the fact that you made a recipe and you say: Oh, I made the bacon-wrapped chicken thighs from Practical Paleo. Here’s a picture, whatever story you want to tell about it, and then you link to the book or you link to the blog post on my site and say: You can go here and get the recipe. I think if you are doing a review of a book and you want to include the recipe because typically reviewing a book or something to that effect, the point of it is to support the person who has written the book, and you want to entice your readers by sharing a recipe with them. I think the etiquette in that case, I think it’s appropriate if you want to share one recipe or if you get permission.

Typically in this case, this not the situation where I would say it’s better to ask for forgiveness than for permission. I would say your best bet is to always just contact whomever owns the blog or who has written the book and just ask them what they would prefer as a way to credit them if you were at all concerned. I think that is the best way to tread when you’re starting out because the last thing you want to do is get people really upset. And most of the time, if you’re at the very least linking to the original recipe or the book if it’s not a recipe that’s online, somebody’s not going to get pissed at you. If you try and pass something off as your own, that’s absolutely not OK. Where recipes tend to be sort of intellectual property more so than other content is in the instructions that you write out, so from what I’ve heard I don’t know that anyone can “own” or say that it’s their recipe just listing the ingredients that are similar because to some degree there are probably a very standard recipe for an omelet, for example, but the way that you write the instructions, that’s really the part of the recipe that each person who writes the recipe sort of owns. So very specifically, if you are sharing that information that’s verbatim, word-for-word of what this other blog said, I think it’s kind of that toss up, whether you want to just make sure you get permission first or whether you link to it. I tend to think that sharing the full information that’s already shared on somebody else’s website that their purpose putting that blog post up is to get people to come to their blog, so I think it’s a little bit shystie to share the whole recipe, and your readers don’t have any motivation to go to that other blog. I think the point of you sharing it is to mutually benefit from that information, to have your readers benefit, but I think it’s important to make sure that you don’t give everything away that would have been on that other site and not motivate your readers to have any reason to go visit that site, if that makes sense.

Liz, do you have anything else to say about that?

Liz Wolfe: My rule of thumb is if the recipe exists somewhere on the Internet already, you can put up a picture of it, talk about great it is, and then link to that recipe. If the recipe does not live on the Internet, then you need to, I think, contact that person if you really, really want to share it with people and give love to their book or wherever it came from, but you also don’t want to post a recipe without anybody having the means to make it themselves right away. I’ve contacted Mark Sisson, like, twice for asking him if I could share his recipes with links back to his site and his book, and he said yeah. People generally appreciate that, so maybe that’s a situation where it might be OK to completely reproduce a recipe.

But I do want to point to a situation that happened to me recently. I made a recipe that was completely posted on one blog. They had permission to repost it from another blog, and they linked back to that blog, but they didn’t link back to the specific recipe on that blog. So basically what happened was I was not able to actually go back to the source, find it, and actually share it from the source, which I felt was the best thing to do. So if you’re going to share somebody’s recipe, you know, not necessarily reproduce it on your site, but if you’re going to share a recipe that someone put out there, do think about whether or not you’re actually sharing it from the original or you’re sharing it as a secondary recipe. I basically generated a ton of traffic to someone’s blog that didn’t actually have the original recipe linked appropriately, and that was an accident, but I did feel bad that whoever it was didn’t actually get credit for the several hundred shares of the recipe. That’s kind of another angle to that blog etiquette deal. When you’re sharing recipes, make sure you’ve at least done a little bit of due diligence to make sure you’re sharing from the source versus something else because the Internet’s kind of the wild, wild West and you want credit to go where it’s due. That’s my opinion.

Diane Sanfilippo: Agreed. Yeah, I think my two short things are as much as possible, just ask permission ahead of time. Pretty much everyone will get back to you and be like: Yeah, that sounds great. Of maybe they’ll give you their preferred way for you to share it. I just think you’re better off not pissing people off. And the second thing is when in doubt, don’t share the whole recipe. If it’s available somewhere else, go ahead and link to it. I definitely have seen some people who have shared full recipes of mine, and they haven’t asked and they haven’t really even gone out of their way to generate any traffic over to my content, and it’s just one of those things where I’m like, you know, it’s not really fair. I take the time to create this content, and that’s what really drives everything for everyone, is creating good content, and so to just kind of steal it feels really wrong. So if you’re not sure, if you feel like it seems not right, then follow your instinct and always try and get that go-ahead because it’ll just make you sure of what you’re doing. Yeah, that’s pretty much it.

But you know, at the end of the day, as recipes creators and bloggers and cookbook authors and whatnot, we love to see people make our recipes, so don’t stop doing it. We definitely love to see you post your version of it or what you did to tweak it. Post a picture and let people know where you got the idea. I think that we definitely love that, so don’t shy away from it.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah. I like it.

Diane Sanfilippo: Word.

Liz Wolfe: Word. All right, so we’ll go ahead and close out with that one. We’ll be back next week with more of your questions. Thanks to Pete’s Paleo and Chameleon Cold-Brew for sponsoring this episode. Be sure to check them out. Until next time, you can find Diane at BalancedBites.com, and you can find me, Liz, at CaveGirlEats.com. Thanks for listening! We’ll be back.

March 19, 2015

March 12, 2015

First, thanks so much for these topics–just yesterday I was having a tough conversation with my parents about my concerns about their health… they are not too open to my views and I’m trying to deal with that. Also, yay flat shoes!

But first, can we like, take over the #putaneggonit tag on IG and Twitter?! Eggs are the best sauce especially for Paleo foods! I’ll start using it if you do!

Barbara

In response to the listener looking for footwear for dates, etc., check out Merrell. They have a bunch of shoes that have vibram soles. My favorite is their Mary Jane style “gloves” and I can wear them with skirts.